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I work in a very small office. The environment is, shall I say, loose. They all swear, talk about personal things constantly and act silly in general. This is a lot different from previous office cultures I have worked in, where you were expected to be very professional and proper.
While I think some of this is good, for the most part I don't like to talk too much about my personal life at work, and I like to keep some boundaries between myself and my coworkers and boss. The problem is, I think they're taking my caution as rejection. I want to establish myself as a professional person, so while I do laugh at their jokes and stay polite, I am just not comfortable being as transparent as they are with each other.
I want to be careful with my boundaries. But, I don't want my team to think I don't like them. Am I in a no-win situation here?
Perhaps decide in advance what to share and create boundaries that way.
I have a similar situation and have decided I will talk freely about kids, sport, hobbies - and leave out relationships, money, religion - because I don't like talking about those with coworkers
You're doing the right thing the problem is some companies have changed over to what they call the "casual work environment". The casual work environment is the equivalent of putting 10 six year olds in a room together and letting them do whatever they want for 8 hours a day. What your coworkers are doing is considered acceptable at these companies and it leads to a long list of problems such as cronyism, rampant frat boy sorority girl mentality and unchecked workplace harassment. In my experience when you let the animals run wild...bad things happen.
Give it some time, you may end up actually liking the work environment. Sounds a lot better than some of the stuffy places at my company. Some offices are so quiet you can hear a pin drop. That's not my idea of an ideal work place.
Sounds better than working with a bunch of stuff old cods. I think once you are there for awhile you will appreciate the environment. This is assuming it isn't too bad and/or breaking any laws or anything.
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